between weather and climate
Energy is transfered to the earth and distributed throughout the earth in four different methods. These methods are as follows:
The sun's energy which strikes the earth is what causes and drives the weather that encompasses the globe. When you were studying your biome the weather conditions that your particular biome experienced would be classified as its climate. The biome's climate is the set of enviromental conditions experienced over many decades or centuries. In the tundra, for example you have cold conditions for nine months with as sort three month growing season. This is what you would expect. However it could be warm, say for a few days in December. This would be classified as a weather condition. You go to Florida and you expect it to be warm and sunny, but maybe you get unlucky and its cold and rainy, this would be the "weather", not the climate.
From the Weather Eye and KGAN news learn more about the differences
between weather and climate
There are several things that make up weather. They are
The sun's energy that reaches the earth arrives in the form of an electromagnetic radiation. When studied this radiation has many different "forms" which are listed as the electromagnetic spectrum; see bottom of page 504. You are expected to know the main forms of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The other three forms or heat transfer are on page 505. Make sure you are familiar with these terms. We will look at these experimentally.
Much of the energy that reaches the earth's atmasphere is filtered out before it reaches the surface. Harmful high energy cosmic, gamma, X-rays, and ultraviolet radiations are either reflected or aborbed by the molecular compounds found in the atmosphere.Of the energy that penetrates into the lower atmosphere, 30% is reflected by clouds or the earth's surface. The remaining 70% warms the the surface of the planet, causing water to evaporate, generating the water cycle and the weather.
When sunlight strikes an object, some of the energy is absorbed, and some is reflected. Albedo is a measurement of the percentage of light that an object reflects. THe higher the albedo the greater the surface's ability to reflect sunlight. For the earth, the higher its overall albedo, the less energy will be absorbed and available for maintaining the global temperature. see page 32
Any object or suface that absorbs energy and becomes warmer is called a heat sink. Land and water act as heat sinks. They absorbe heat energy by day and can release this energy at night. A material's ability to absorb energy and have its temperature increased is called its specific heat capacity. Water has a specific heat capacity of 4.18 J/goC. What this meand is that it take 4.18 joules of energy to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celcius. This may not seem like a lot, but only takes 0.450 joules of heat to raise the temperature of one gram of iron one degree. That approximately one tenth the amount of heat. A graph of different heat capacities is given on page 506.
Seasons are caused by the Earth's revolution around the sun combined with the tilt of the Earth. The earth has an axial tilt of 23.5o. This means that durning the winter the Earth in the Norther Hemisphere is pointed away from the sun. In the summer the Earth is pointed towards the sun. Direct sunlight striking an object will enpart more energy into that surface than oblique or indirect sunlight.
The solstices occur when the Earth is pointing either directly at or directly away from the sun. These are at the "a" position on the ellipse. You should remember from grade nine that the Earth travels in an elliptical orbit around the sun. The equinoxes occur when the Earth is at the "b" position on its elliptical path. At this position there is no axial tilt of the Earth either away or towards the Sun. See page 508 of the text book.
This takes us thru the first three sections of chapter 13.
Do expect a quiz on this section.